


elysian fields

by Anonymous



Category: Hockey RPF, Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: (kinda), Angst, Firefighters AU, Happy Ending, M/M, apocalypse au, blood mention, ill add more tags as I upload chapters bc I’m so bad at tags lmao, trans!Brad, wilderness survival?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-04 09:45:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17302313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: elysian fields: the abode of the blessed after deathWhen a plague hits North America, Brad and Patrice find themselves having to escape Boston to survive.





	1. the beginning

“There he is,” Brad’s father had whispered in his ear, “get him in your sights.” 

Brad was nine years old. The November air whipped his face where he was perched high up in the crowded deer stand with his dad and made his eyes water fiercely. In the clearing in front of them, a buck wandered forward, leaving glittery hoofprints in the dew.

“I’ve got it,” Brad blinked furiously to clear his eyes and set his index finger squarely on the trigger of the shotgun. He needed this. His brother shot his first deer two years prior, and this kill would be the coolest thing he’d ever done by far. He’d already imagined the story he’d tell to all his friends at school, the glory of the hunt. Sometimes, his teacher, Mrs. Morgan, would even put pictures on the bulletin board when a student did something special. He couldn’t wait.

“Now!” his father whispered, kneeling directly behind him, pressed against his back to absorb some of the recoil. Brad squeezed the trigger and his eyes shut at the same time. The sound of the gun was always the worst part.

He felt his dad take the gun from his hands, prepared to make the kill shot, but when he dared to open his eyes, the buck was already on the ground. Clean shot to the heart.

“Yeah, Meredith! That’s my girl!”

Brad was already stumbling his way down the ladder to inspect his prize, and he could hear his dad laughing at his enthusiasm from above. The leaves crunched underneath him as he laid a hand on the head of the deer. He quickly counted under his breath, daring to run his other hand along the rack. This was his deer!

“Dad! Dad!” Brad screeched as his father slowly made his way down to join him, “It’s a eight pointer!”

“Oh, very nice.” his father said, grinning, and Brad could tell that he was proud. “Are you ready? You’re not gonna run on me like your brother, are you?”

Brad knew his older brother ran after his first kill, becoming squeamish at the sight of the deep crimson blood running out of the wound he’d created. But Brad? He was just having a hard time not being too excited about it.

“No. I’m ready.” He took off his hat and turned his face up towards his father.

If it would make him braver than his brother, Brad would’ve taken a bath in the blood. But his father just smeared a little on each cheek, and then one line down his nose.

“There. Now, go get by him and let me take your picture for your mom” 

He’d gotten blooded! And this was his deer! 

“Okay, take my picture now!” Brad knelt by the deer, holding up its head by the antlers with a toothy grin. 

His father took a few shots with his camera. “Say cheese!”

The camera flashed, and he wasn’t in the woods anymore.

It smelled so much like blood. It was too much, and he twisted his face to try to get away from it. The blood on his face felt hot, so hot, and it smelled so bad, there was blood all over his face, all over the floor, on his hands,

 

-

 

Brad awoke with a start.

He was lying on the floor with blood crusted on his face, thick underneath his nose and dried hard and sticky near his mouth. His shirt was heavy with sweat, and his joggers were soaked with… worse. 

There were three gallon water jugs tipped over and empty near his head, and one nearly drained dry. He sat up with great effort and coughed weakly, grasping for the remaining water on instinct. His mind was blank before a flash of memory came back to him like a gunshot.

 

-

 

“Brad?” Patrice called him one Friday night in the early summer. The two of them had this weekend off, but were in for a long shift at the fire station the next week. They’d decided to just spend some time on their own to unwind, and Brad wasn’t expecting to hear from him. His voice was a little distant, and the fact that he’d chosen to call instead of text worried Brad immediately. 

“What’s up, you drunk? You need me to come pick you up?” he said as he walked to pick up his keys and wallet from the counter.

“Ah, no,” he mumbled, “Baby, I really don’t feel good.”

Brad couldn’t remember the last time he’d been called ‘baby’- much less the soft way Patrice always pronounced it, more like ‘bebe,’

“Did something happen? Are you sick?”

“I don’t know, I felt fine a few minutes ago, but it came on me all of a sudden. I don’t think I can, uh, stand up anymore, even. I need you to come over.”

Brad forced himself to take a few deep, calming breaths. Patrice, rushing into a burning apartment building with a punctured lung Patrice, needed him to come over because he felt sick? 

“I’m on my way now, then. You just sit tight.” He was already pulling out of the garage, thinking about how fast he was going to let himself drive to get to Patrice.

“You’ll be here soon?”

“Yes, bud, before you know it.”

And he was.

Brad found the front door unlocked and Patrice laid flat on his couch, eyes closed, and body limp.

“Oh my god, Bergy, what’s going on?” he exclaimed as he put a hand on Patrice’s forehead, then neck, then chest, “you’re burning up!”

Patrice spoke in barely a whisper. “I don’t know. Heard the station’s been getting a lot of calls this weekend, though. Something’s going around.”

Well, shit. Brad had ignored his phone all day and had switched his pager off the moment he got off his last shift- pissed at his superiors and pissed at the world and unfairly pissed at people who didn’t check the batteries on their smoke alarms and who dumped water on grease fires. But another wave of the flu wasn’t really his problem, unless Patrice had come down with it.

Brad was stroking Patrice’s hair gently, trying to push it all far from his mind and focus on the situation at hand, even though his phone had sounded a text message alert about four times since he’d been in the house. “Shh, I just think you’ve got a pretty high fever. Nothing to worry about.”

“I already-” he stopped to catch his breath. “I already saw the messages- Krejci said we got call after call- wouldn’t stop ringing. Hundreds of calls about a fever.”

Brad’s eyes grew wide and his hand stilled as he listened to Patrice’s quiet voice. Hundreds? “I don’t-”

“A lot of people are sick, Brad. A lot of people, I think. All at the same time, like overnight.” His face was so pale, like all the strength had drained out of him. Out of all of this though, it frightened Brad the most when Patrice grabbed his hand with a fierceness that seemed to take all of his effort. “I’m very scared.”

“Alright bud, I know you don’t feel well, but it’s really going to be just fine.” He heard his phone’s text alert make a dinging sound three times in quick succession, and then the emergency alert sound rang. It screeched a horrible buzzing tri-tone that echoed in Patrice’s quiet home. Bergy didn’t react, and Brad didn’t even look at his phone as he switched it to silent. Amber alert, probably.

“Just a really bad fever.” He squatted down to push an arm beneath Patrice’s knees and one across his back and lift him bridal style. No fireman’s carry this time around. “I’m gonna set you down in my car, and get you some water and some ice packs until we can get to the hospital, okay?” 

Patrice didn’t hear him. He had already fallen asleep. 

 

-

 

Brad stumbled his way to his feet and gingerly peeled his joggers and shirt off. He’d never felt this horrible in his life- it felt like he’d been tackled to the ground by Goliath, and then slept for 48 hours. He surveyed the kitchen- God, he was starving- and the whole place looked like it had been ransacked. All of the cabinets were opened. There were food packages that had been opened, had a few bites taken out of whatever it was, and then left on the floor or counter. Had someone broken into his house? Maybe someone knocked him out, that would make sense, his head was killing him-

He picked up his watch on the countertop to check the time. It was mid afternoon. But then he noticed the date, knees buckling- nearly a week and a half after that fateful Friday phone call.

No one had broken into his house, had they? He’d been here the whole time, and had no memory of any of it.


	2. the plague

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see the end notes for spoilery trigger warnings

“Sir, I’m going to need you to remain calm. We have a lot of people here who are seeking medical attention-”

“He’s got a really high fever, he’s mostly unconscious, and if you don’t see him right now I’m worried he’s going to die in this waiting room,” Brad said. Somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered that the two of them had a shift at the fire station tomorrow. Everything seemed so distant here, as he pressed his palms into the edge of the receptionist’s desk.

The receptionist quit typing and looked up. “Fever? Did this happen all of a sudden?”

Brad cleared his throat. “Yes.”

She turned and picked up a phone and said a bunch of words into it that were meaningless to Brad, then two nurses burst forth from the swinging double doors and took hold of the folding wheelchair that Patrice was in and starting to take him to the back. Brad immediately followed, body sagging with relief, until he was stopped short by someone’s hand that caught him on his sternum.

“Sir, you can’t come back here, only family members,” some scrubs said, “and we are about to close this whole wing off as a contaminated area.” 

“I am his family, I’m his-”

“Are you his husband, sir?”

“Well, no.” 

Patrice was already out of his sights. 

The scrubs’ face softened at the sight of Brad’s distress. “Look, go home and get your friend a change of clothes and maybe a book or two. He’ll probably be a while, and I can take the stuff back to him. Hopefully we can get his temp down and have him moved to a regular room by the time you’re back.”

And what else was there to do? The nurse seemed pretty calm, and Brad knew just how resilient Patrice was. He took the nurse’s relaxed tone as a vote of confidence, and told himself he could be back where he stood in thirty minutes if he hustled. 

 

-

 

Brad rolled up to the hospital, alone this time. He still felt very weak- weak enough that it probably wasn’t smart for him to drive- but the power was out at his house and his phone was dead.

In the few minutes he had spent scrambling around his house and after a couple of futile attempts to revive his phone, Brad had picked up the newspapers stacked outside his driveway and gathered that this virus had been going around and affected some astronomical number of people, effectively shutting down the entire east coast. Boston was one of the first cities to go. The last paper he’d gotten, dated four days before he regained his strength, advised that those who weren’t ill stay inside and wait it out- but it was clear from the number of abandoned cars on the side of the road and smashed glass storefronts that this was more serious that he could’ve ever imagined. Hundreds of thousands had already left the city. He passed several cars driving west, pushing the speed limit, and only a few people hurrying along the sidewalks. A few had arms full of groceries or some kind of supplies, and a few were just wandering; shell-shocked. 

He’d had the fever and must’ve survived, or so he’d assumed. Perhaps it helped that he was already in very excellent physical condition. He worked out nearly daily at the fire station. There was still a giant blank in his mind for that entire week and a half since he had first dropped Bergy off at the hospital. Not to mention the blanks in his memory when his brain reached for a past memory- during his drive to the hospital he panicked because he couldn’t find his ring. It took him a long while to realize that he and Patrice weren’t married. 

“Keep it together, Brad,” he whispered to himself as he stepped out of the car and started jogging towards the entrance. 

Someone was sitting outside the twin sliding doors.

“You don’t wanna go in there.” 

It was the same scrubs that had stopped him from going back in the hospital with Patrice the first time around now sitting outside the dark hospital a week and a half later. He was sitting on the ground, with his back propped against the outside wall, leaning to the left.

“Not this time around, buddy,” Brad said, zeroed in on his target. He’d break through walls to get to Patrice. He’d done the same for anonymous bodies trapped in burning buildings. He’d do it all and more.

“There’s not anyone left, I don’t think.” the guy wheezed out. Brad stole a glance in his direction. He was nearly unrecognizable from when they encountered each other before- his eyes had huge dark circles beneath them, his complexion was pasty and his arms were drooped by his sides. “I did my best, but I’m the last one, s’far as I know. And I’m about to go, too, I think.”

Well, shit. 

Brad knelt on one knee by the nurse, and God, he absolutely did not have time for this, but-

“Listen, man. I’ve been down for the count for more than a week. What the hell is happening?” Brad said in his most assertive first responder voice as he felt his face: burning up.

The nurse took his hand like Patrice had done not so long ago, and began to recite a spill that seemed practiced. “The fever- some kind of virus. Airborne, extremely contagious. The ones that made it to the hospital had only started experiencing symptoms in the past 30 minutes to an hour, and that was the problem. People dropping so fast that the whole city, everything just shuts down. A few survived, and then left as fast as they could, looking for their family or getting out of town. Everything’s closing. The T’s not running.”

“But that’s just it? A fever? Was there anything you could do?” Brad asked, reaching to pick up the nurse, maybe take him to his car, anything-

“No, leave me,” the nurse swatted his hands away weakly. “Nothing I could do. Tried everything, just tried to keep them alive. Most fevers would run up to 109, 110 degrees. Brain damage starts at 107. Then the blood congeals. Organ failure.” His eyes glistened as he slumped back against the wall. He looked out into the distance, as if suddenly intrigued by the way the wind blew clumps of pollen along the sidewalk. “Go get your friend. I’ll be here when you get back.”

 

It was as if his whole mind was on autopilot as he made his way down the hospital halls, trying to not allow himself to crumple in panic. The whole place was empty, and there wasn’t any power here, either. The hallways were dark and shadowy, and he pushed the thought of every horror movie he’d ever seen as far from his mind as possible. He had a mission, and that was what he clung to: find Patrice. 

And speaking of, there was no telling where Patrice was, or if he was even still-

“Breathe,” Brad told himself aloud, “Breathe breathe breathe.”

As he came to the first room that wasn’t already open on the long, sterile looking hall, he pushed it open and the door swung wide to reveal bodies, most all still in their hospital gowns. Maybe twenty-five or thirty. At first they were stacked neatly, but then a few on top were haphazardly pushed in, as if the person doing the stacking just didn’t have the strength or means to finish their job. The smell was noxious. The sight was more than any person should ever have to witness. 

“Jesus. Jesus,” Brad took a gasping breath as he backed out into the hallway, “Holy shit. Holy shit.” 

Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. It had to be. In any case, there was no point in looking in there, because surely Patrice was alive.

“Hey Bergy?” Brad called as he ran his hand along the wall as he began to jog. It was getting darker as he went further into the hospital. “Bergy, I’m sorry I left you,” please keep it the fuck together Brad, “but I’m here now, and we’re going to get out of here, ok?”

His voice echoed. The only light ahead was a red ‘EXIT’ sign, somehow still illuminated. It threw a red glow over everything. There was one door left that wasn’t already open and visibly empty. 

“Okay, Bergy, I’m going to open this door, and there’s not going to be any more, uh,” he couldn’t finish. He put his hand on the doorknob, but couldn’t force himself to open it. His body was paralyzed, the image of what he had just seen permanently burned on the inside of his eyelids. “Bergy, I’m going to open this door now, so don’t get scared when I come in. It’s just me,” he nearly shouted. “Don’t be scared.”

Brad sucked in and pushed the door open all at once. 

There were two beds with two people in them apiece, and three other people (bodies?) on the floor. And there was Patrice. He’d know the shape of him anywhere.

“Oh thank god,” Brad could’ve wept as he rushed over to him. “Patrice.” He nearly fell over him in relief. “Bergy, hey, you with me?” He lifted his wrist and felt his heartbeat, faint, but there. As Brad pet his hair and kissed his cheeks, he stirred just a little. His bedmate did not. Brad reached over and felt of his neck: cold. 

“Heard you yelling,” Patrice mumbled out. He was so mussed, his short-cropped beard a little more scraggly than usual and his hair all out of place. Brad felt of his forehead, and his hand came back damp. The fever had broken.

“Yeah?” Brad desperately wished he had his flashlight- everything was so dim here. Patrice was curled on his side. There were half-melted ice packs surrounding him; on his neck, in his armpits and between his legs. He still had an IV in his arm, but the bag it was connected to had drained dry. 

Patrice pushed into Brad’s gentle touch all he could. “M’thirsty.”

“Okay. Okay. I have some water waiting for you in the car. Just one minute.” He pulled the crook of Patrice’s elbow to where a sliver of light from the hallway crept into the room. “I gotta take this out, then we’ll be out of here.”

Patrice’s eyes were closed again, but he nodded very slightly. His eyes flickered and squeezed tight while Brad worked. He lifted him from the bed, and if he would’ve had enough water left in him, he would’ve cried. 

 

-

 

Brad buckled Patrice into the passenger seat, and dashed back to the entrance, where the nurse still sat, looking out, unseeing. He’d quit breathing at some point while he was inside.

“Ah. Thanks, man.” 

He went back to the car, trying to anchor his mind to his next task. It was time to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: brad stumbles upon a room in a hospital with dead bodies inside. he also speaks with a nurse at the beginning of the chapter who he finds dead at the end.


	3. the escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time to blow this popsicle stand

“Chara?” Brad tapped his thumb impatiently on the steering wheel. “C’mon Zee, please pick up.” His phone was connected to the charger with a springy cord he had plugged into the cigarette lighter socket, and he’d managed to get it to turn back on. The sound of the unanswered ring had to be in the top five worst things Brad had heard all day, and his day had been pretty shitty.

Patrice was in the passenger seat, falling in and out of consciousness every so often. Brad had put a pillow between his head and the window for him to sleep on, and every time he would wake up with a soft noise and a frown, he’d have him take some sips of Pedialyte. 

Brad was taking them out to his family’s land, a hunting camp some distance outside of Halifax. It was a place with a cabin he went every summer with his father and his brothers, to hunt and enjoy the outdoors. It was a small place, just two rooms, enough space to sleep and hunt and clean whatever you shot or caught. It was miles away from any other camps, and even farther away from town. Perfect for spending weekends hunting without worrying about all the bureaucratic garbage regulations on leased land, and the place that Brad instinctively associated with safety. 

“Go to hunting camp” was written on a post-it note that was stuck to the center of the steering wheel. There was another post-it note, this one pink, on the side of the front windshield. This one simply said ‘Patrice Bergeron’ with a heart around it. Finally, there was another post-it, this one on top of the dash, that said ‘notebook in front seat pocket.’

Brad had no memory of making these post-its. He also had no memory of the apparent notebook in the front seat pocket, but he could take a look when he stopped to piss or when he remembered, whichever came first. He had come to the conclusion that the fever had completely cooked his brain.

He was a second from abandoning the call when Chara finally picked up. 

“Hello? Marchand?”

Brad could have laughed with relief. “Yes, hello? Zee- I mean, Captain Chara?”

He heard Zee’s sigh in his ear. “Brad, god, am I glad you’re alive. Are you safe?”

“Well, we’re getting there. I have Bergeron with me. We both had the fever.” Brad swallowed. Saying it out loud made it all real. “And uh, I’m having a lot of trouble remembering stuff. But I’m taking us to my camp near Halifax. Are you safe?”

“You _both_ had the-” Chara stuttered in disbelief. “How are you even alive? I haven’t heard of anyone surviving it so far- in any case, I’m glad you’re together. And glad you’re getting out. My family and I left as soon as we heard there was an epidemic, and I’m glad we did. You guys need to be really careful. I’ve heard about some crazy stuff going on, I don’t know what’s true. We’re alre-” The phone cut out for a few seconds of silence. “-out west, in a safe place. But the fever’s spreading out this way fast.”

“Good God.” Brad glanced over at Patrice. His thumb was twitching as he slept. “Have you heard from anyone else in the… from the…” The place he worked. It was on the tip of his tongue.

“No. No one has been in touch since my initial call-out to abandon the station.” Oh, the fire station. “Once the police essentially folded… there were calls still being directed to us, but there was just nothing I could do. Not with the lack of bodies to do the work and with the amount of crime-”

 

“It’s al-” Well, it wasn’t alright. “You did the best you could. And my phone’s been dead for a while now, maybe some of the guys just don’t have power.”

“Yes, I-”

Brad couldn’t hear what he said next, because he nearly dropped the phone after a series of rapid-fire popping sounds that he seriously hoped was not what he thought it was. It was loud enough that Chara could overhear. 

“Marchy? Is everything-“

“I’m going to have to call you back,” Brad said, and he punched the red ‘end call’ button and set his phone back on the dash. 

At least Chara and his family were safe. He was a good man, and he had always been kind to him.

The sun had almost set as Brad’s car crested a hill. In the distance, he noticed ten or twelve cars haphazardly pushed to the side of the road. Maybe there’d been a wreck as people were leaving town, pile-ups were common in mass exoduses, but at the bottom of the long slope there were skid marks criss-crossed so heavily that the sun-bleached grey asphalt looked black.

Hm. 

“Bergy.” Brad reached over and shook Patrice by the shoulder. He cleared his throat. “ _Bergy._ ” Patrice stirred, a tiny frown flashing across his face. “Yeah, hey, Bergy,” Brad shook him harder. “Wake up wake up wake up.”

“Hey,” Patrice said, maybe more in protest to the violent shaking than in actual greeting, but that didn’t matter.

“Recline your seat all the way back, right now,” Brad said fiercely, “Just do it.” He hoped for once Patrice wouldn’t have a million questions. He’d been steadily accelerating the past few seconds and the needle on his speedometer was passing 90, pushing 95. 

Patrice thankfully obliged, and the cross-strap of his seatbelt hung free in the air as he laid back. “What’s going o-”

“Tell you in a second,” Brad spat out, voice tight, and foot heavy on the gas. Then he ducked, suddenly, hands still tight on the wheel but his head thrown beneath the windshield. He was practically in Patrice’s lap. They passed the first car that was wrecked on the side of the road, and Brad fought the urge to squeeze his eyes shut. Then, just as he suspected, the crack of gunfire popped all around them. 

Brad counted three shots, maybe more, and the sound of glass shattering stopped his heart. He lifted his head back up just in time to swerve back onto the road- they’d come close to running into the ditch where the other vehicles had been dumped. They were far behind them now. 

“You okay?” He stole a glance over to Patrice, who was still laying back with his pillow now clutched to his chest. 

Patrice turned, unwilling to move anything but his head. “All good,” he said breathlessly, with a glint of mischief in his eye that only comes after narrowly avoiding death. 

Seeing Bergy with the barest shadow of a smile gave Brad more mental relief than when he pulled over to assess the damage and realized only the right back headlight had been blown. Bergy remained buckled in against his wishes.

“I’ve napped for at least five hours, I think I’m good to have a walk,” he said, in a voice that reminded Brad very much of his drunk voice, still making no visible efforts to move his legs. 

“Yeah, no,” Brad said, unbuckling, “I’ll help you out as soon as you tell me you need to take a piss. It’s literally been forever. I’m going to need to see those water bottles emptied- and drink that fucking Pedialyte I swear to God, Bergeron-“ 

“Okay, okay, geez” Patrice muttered, unscrewing the cap and giving a few exaggerated gulps. “Where the hell are we, anyway?”

“It’s so good to know you’re feeling a bit better, Bergy.” Brad tried to be sarcastic, but a little too much emotion snuck into his voice. “We’re getting pretty close to the border.”

“Of Canada?” Patrice asked.

“Back taillight’s done for… otherwise everything else looks alright.” He smacked the side of the car with the flat of his palm twice, and circled around to jump back in the driver’s seat.

Patrice waited until Brad was back in the car to try his question again. “Did you hear me? The border of Canada?”

He nodded as he put the car in gear.

Patrice frowned. 

“Well, look, it’s not safe anywhere near Boston. More people had the fever than you’d believe, Bergy. I don’t even know how many people could be that sick, and so quick, too. I mean, we’re still passing cars on the sides of the road with just… dead people in them. And a lot of the ones who are left are violent- they’re all desperate for supplies and safety. I mean, we just got shot at like, 300 miles away from the city. So I’m taking us somewhere safe.”

“Well what about everyone else? The guys at the station?” Patrice said, panic creeping into his voice. Brad noticed Patrice had finally finished one of the water bottles, thank goodness. “Were you on the phone earlier?”

“What? When?” Brad said, voice casual.

He made a call? Maybe Patrice was having memory issues, too.

Patrice rubbed the heels of his hands on his eyes. “Don’t joke around, I heard you. Was it Chara? I want to talk to him, where’s the phone,” he said, scrambling for Brad’s phone. 

“Whoa, hang on, let me get it for you,” Brad was realizing that the stark reality of this new world they had both been thrust into was beginning to dawn on Bergy.

Brad found the most recently dialed number on caller ID and tried to redial the number twice, but it wouldn’t connect. Okay, maybe he had made a call. “It’s okay. We probably just don’t have good service here.” He set the phone back down on the dash gently. 

Patrice took a long, deep breath. “So we’re going to Halifax, because we’re sure it’ll be much safer there.” he said slowly.

Brad widened his eyes in an expression of ‘why can’t you read my mind.’

“Well, uh, not exactly Halifax. And yeah, it will be safer, there’s lots of land to hunt and plenty of supplies. We can stay there until things get back to normal down here,” he said, because he’d written “go to hunting camp” on a post-it note and stuck it over the shiny car brand logo at some point for a good reason, and hell, that seemed like a pretty decent plan.

That satisfied Patrice for a little while, and Brad thought he’d gone back to sleep after they rode in silence past pine after pine.

“But what’re the post-its for?” His tone was cautious, and Brad could tell he’d been sitting on that question.

“You know, you sure are asking a lot of questions for someone who was on death’s door a day ago,” he snapped back.

Brad really, really did not want to have to explain them. 

Patrice grabbed his arm. “Please don’t be like that. Not now,” he whispered, plaintive. Brad looked over at his face, and it was like a punch to the gut. He’d been avoiding looking right at Bergy, afraid of what he might see in his eyes. He was thinner, his skin drawn ever so slightly tighter against his cheekbones, something you’d only notice if you’d loved that face every day for the past four years, and admired it for the past eight. But those eyes. He’d never seen Bergy look that frightened. 

“It’s to help me remember.”

“Brad. Baby.” There he went again, with that heartbreaking way he’d always say _bebe_ , “Remember what? That we’re going to Halifax? Or… is that my name?”

Brad fought the urge to slam his hand down on the dash. A white knuckled grip on the steering wheel kept him from losing his cool- he was so frustrated with this entire situation and having to say it all aloud was just too damn much.

“I had the fever too. S’why I wasn’t with you in the hospital. I think it cooked my brain a little bit. I’ve been forgetting stuff, and I can’t think as well as I used to, I don’t think.” He cleared his throat. 

Patrice took one of his hands and held it with both of his. Brad refused to look over at him. “But uh, you wouldn’t forget _me_ , though, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check back in on monday to read chapter four: the cabin


	4. the cabin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> home sweet home

Brad knocked obnoxiously three separate times before Elaine finally opened her front door.

“Can you please have some decency, my little sister is napping-” Elaine muttered, ushering him in the door before getting a better look. “Holy _shit you finally got the chop!_ ” 

He’d come directly from the barber. His ponytail was no more, and now his hair was short all over, shaved slightly in the back and on the sides, with just a little length on top left to style. He’d never been so happy and so terrified in his life.

“Well? Do you like it? Oh shit, Meredith, your dad is going to kill you.” Elaine was going through a cycle of emotions that were oscillating at a speed only a seventeen year old could achieve. “Damn, you look hot! Wait, have you been home yet? Oh shit.” They’d made it back to her room, and she plopped him on the side of her twin bed so she could better examine his new haircut.

“Can I speak?” he had to laugh. “Yes, I like it. No I haven’t been home yet.” And that was exactly what he was doing over at her house unannounced- delaying the inevitable. 

“You look like a really cool butch. Like, the coolest butch I’ve ever seen.” She was trying hard to boost his confidence, he knew that, but he didn’t really care about being a cool butch. “Are you, uhm… are you okay?” Elaine picked up his hand from where it rest on his lap. He knew it was trembling, but he couldn’t make it stop. His whole body was taut with anxiety. 

“I’m good,” he lied. “I don’t regret cutting it, I like it. I just, uh…” stop being a pussy, Brad, “my dad’s going to freak out and I if he freaks out then I’m going to freak out and I don’t know if I even thought this all the way through and-”

“Okay. Hey.” Elaine grabbed his shoulders. “Chill out.” She bent down to unlace her boots, her long mousy hair momentarily shielding her face as she worked. “Do you remember that time you thought you were going to fail Pre-Algebra and you came over and you were freaking out and stuff?” she said, looking up through her hair. 

Brad’s hands were in tight fists. “Yeah…” 

“And remember how I had to fight you to make you stop punching my stuffed animals because they didn’t deserve it?” 

He felt his mouth move in the tiniest quiver of a smile. “Yeah, I remember,”

Her boots were now set to the side. “Okay, well-” she jumped up and tackled him back on the bed in one quick motion. After some brief smacking and wrestling, four stuffed animals and a pillow were on the floor and Elaine was lying parallel on top of Brad. Her face was to the side, lying in the crook of his neck. 

“You’re crushing me,” he said, unconvincingly.

“No I’m not. Now please freaking relax.”

He really appreciated that she didn’t mention his quiet sniffling and that she just hummed an affirmative when he asked her to wake him up at five. He let his muscles and his mind relax.

Five came faster than he expected, Brad thought blearily, unwilling to open his eyes just yet. The warm pressure of someone laying on top of him felt so good that he wanted to keep sleeping, but Elaine was really heavy and was whispering sweetly in his ear but her voice was so deep and-

Not Elaine. 

He shouted and struggled to push the person off, wriggling away and trying to get his feet under him and getting tangled in the quilt when the person started to fight back.

“Brad! Brad, stop, you’re kicking me-”

His heart was beating out of his chest. Everything was dark and different, and the quilt was wrapped around him after all the thrashing he’d just done, and there was someone just laying on him, and he couldn’t remember where he was.

The scene became illuminated as the guy reached out to open the blinds and allowed the early morning light to come streaming in. Brad was grateful for the light, because he knew where he was now. Well. Kind of. It was a tiny, sparse bedroom, and he felt like he’d been here before. Was he on vacation? What the fuck?

“Marchy? You have a bad dream?” 

His attention snapped back to the guy now sitting up with his legs still beneath the covers, who looked rumpled and handsome- he couldn’t help but give him a once over. It was clear that he wasn’t about to kill him, he obviously knew who Brad was-

“Oh. Oh no no no, you’ve been doing so well, Brad, look at me.” 

He couldn’t speak. Maybe he was lucid dreaming. That was probably it. Handsome guy had both his hands up, as if he were trying to calm a spooked horse. Brad rubbed the edge of the blanket between his fingers and pulled it up higher over his lap where he was still sitting on the bed. 

“Are you having trouble remembering?” His voice was patient and gentle, a practiced tone, but his face looked like someone had just shot his dog. Handsome guy moved to scoot closer, but in doing so, the quilt slipped down his thighs. Brad turned away as he felt his face flush hot and began furiously pinching the inside of his forearm. 

“Stop it,” he grabbed both of Brad’s hands and pulled them away from each other to make him stop, “hey, please talk to me.” His thumb ran over the red spot where Brad had grabbed his skin and twisted. “You’re not dreaming, I’m here with you, just give it a second.”

With his touch, it was as if Brad was bursting forth from being held deep underwater. With a great gasping breath Brad knew Patrice. “Bergy,” Brad whispered, “You scared me.”

After being held tight against Patrice’s chest for a few moments, perhaps more for his sake than for Brad’s, he was convinced into being led into the main room for breakfast. Patrice quieted his distress (“Sometimes this happens to you. It’s okay.”) with several long kisses and asked him to let his memory come back to him naturally, if he could. Brad sat at the kitchen table, still, watching Patrice’s movements. He hung a kettle over the fire in the fireplace, the handle sliding into its hook with a soft clink, and then returned to the kitchen to tear open a package of instant grits and dump the contents in a bowl. 

He took in his surroundings. Besides the bedroom, the rest of the cabin was an open-floor plan, sparsely decorated with a mounted moose head and a hopelessly faded rug. Besides that, there was the table at which he sat, a pair of chairs in front of the fireplace, and a wooden chest. It was primitive, a little dusty, but the smell of the fireplace and Patrice’s presence made it feel homey. It felt familiar.

“Has anything else come back to you?” Patrice asked, shoulders tense and face drawn tight. 

“Just you, I guess.” Brad’s mind was frighteningly blank, but he was calm. 

He studied Patrice in the dim lighting. Brad loved him. He loved the way he moved and the way he spoke, with those rounded French-Canadian vowels, and his half-finished tattoo sleeve. Brad felt more settled just watching him move about. Patrice was shirtless and had slid on pajama pants and socks. The flannel pants were flooding and the elastic was stretched around his waist. “Are those mine?”

Patrice laughed as he attended to the whistling kettle. “What are you talking about?”

“Those pants.” This was good. Maybe they were a present. A weird ‘giving your boyfriend your clothes’ thing. He clung to the thought, trying to stir up an associated memory. “They’re too small for you.” 

“Oh.” Patrice looked down, like he’d forgotten he was even wearing pants. He didn’t answer right away, seemingly very focused on pouring water in his grits. “When you first woke up, you were embarrassed to see me without pants on,” he said with a smirk.

“Yeah, I was,” Brad frowned, less than amused. Why would Patrice say that? It was disturbing to acknowledge his memory lapse. “But did I give you those pants? Help me remember, I feel like I’m getting somewhere.”

Patrice sighed as he brought the bowl over to the table and set it in front of Brad. They weren’t too watery, it was just how he liked it. No butter, but he would behave and not ask for it. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” He didn’t like the look on Patrice’s face. It was the same face his dad had on when he had to sit him down to tell him that his mother had cancer, the universal bad news glare. Holy shit, his mom had had cancer. 

He felt dizzy again, and his appetite left him. A shame, really. He loved grits.

“Are we camping? Where are we?” Brad demanded.

Patrice pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please answer my question first.” 

“I don’t know,” he huffed, “we were working a double shift together and you said you were too tired to come home with me. So then I just went home.” 

“Brad,” Patrice took his hand and rubbed his thumb over his crooked knuckles. “A lot has happened since then. I’m worried that it will upset you if it all comes back too fast.” 

“Upset me?” Brad exclaimed, his anger flashing. “And you don’t think it’s upsetting to me to know I can’t even remember where we are, and that you aren’t telling me? You don’t think it’s _upsetting_ that I didn’t even know who you were for a moment?”

“Listen. Listen,” he said, squeezing Brad’s hand tighter. “We’ve been here a little over a week. We’re at your hunting camp. There was a virus that gave you a really high fever, I don’t know much more about it. Lots of people had it, including you and I. Most people didn’t survive, and most everything is shut down, so now we’re here, waiting it all out. You had to take what you could, what you thought we might need from your house, and we didn’t have a lot of extra time. I was still, uh, asleep, when you went back to your place. So these pajama pants are yours, yes.”

Brad pushed his grits around his free hand, and the little room was silent except for the clinking of his spoon.

“You were by yourself when you came down with the fever, though. You had just dropped me off at the hospital. I don’t really know how you made it through. But you probably have some brain damage, because you get confused about some things, or you’ll forget things sometimes.”

Brad pursed his lips, considering. “Have I ever forgotten this much before?”

Patrice shook his head. “No. Never like this. But you usually remember whatever it is before too long.”

“Do you ever forget things?”

“No, I haven’t yet.” Patrice let go of his hand to lean down and pull up one of his pant legs. “But I get bruises really easily now, for whatever reason.” And there, low on his muscled thighs were blooming blue and black bruises from where Brad had kicked him earlier in his panic. 

“Oh.” They were sitting close enough that Brad didn’t have to reach to run his fingernails gently against the grain of the hair where his bruises lay. “Did I…?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Patrice said, drawing back from his touch and shoving the flannel back down. “And you’d better eat those grits before they get cold and gross. I used one of our grits packages on you.” He got up and went to pour some water out of a tea pitcher onto a hand towel and wiped his face with it. “You’ve got a notebook where you’ve been writing down things. If you feel up to it, you could take a look.” He kept puttering around the kitchen, opening a window, sprinkling water on a plant that looked very freshly potted, completing an invisible checklist of chores that Brad undoubtedly had a place in. If his mind would just fucking work. 

Brad finished his cold grits even though he wasn’t hungry in the slightest. “Where’s the notebook?”

“Give me a second and I’ll go find it.” Patrice said as he poured himself a glass of water out of the same tea pitcher into a chipped coffee mug. “M’thirsty.” 

The casual phrase made something click inside Brad’s brain, and the floodgates opened. Brad felt his head pitch forward onto the table, groaning, and he couldn’t hear Patrice shout as he reeled in his own memory, his nose filling with the stench of the bodies, his heart pounding in his ears like a gunshot searching for Bergy, seeing him curled up and crowded in that small bed in the dark, the body of the nurse outside the hospital doors, the whole of the trauma slamming into him like a freight train. His arms felt numb and tingly and his vision prickled at the edges, but he could feel Patrice pull on his shoulders so that he was sitting up again. He clasped his hands onto his head tight, and he dug the palms of his heels hard into his ears. 

“Hey hey hey. Marchy, you gotta stay with me.” Brad felt Patrice peel his hands away from his face and put them on his arms instead. Somewhere in the back of his mind Brad knew he was holding on with too firm a grip, hard enough to bruise, but-

“Where’s Pasta,” Brad gasped out, “I forgot, I forgot to call him,”

Patrice didn’t respond. He stared down at him, eyes wild, swallowing hard.

“Bergy, please, where’s Pasta,” Brad’s voice was hoarse and he stood up so suddenly that he knocked Patrice off balance. “I gotta go get him. And Charlie, and Jake, and Torey, they-“

“Okay, breathe, man,” Patrice took his hand and pulled him back down into his chair. “Pasta and the rest of the guys at the station are smart. They can take care of themselves just like we did. If they didn’t…” he stopped himself. “I’m sure they’re alright.”

“I forgot to call him.” 

There had been times in Brad’s life when he had felt near complete devastation. A raging fire that couldn’t be contained and was only stopped when the all that remained of the house was charred ashes. A mother and father, both deep sleepers, whose smoke alarms had dead batteries, a call to the station too late, and seeing the faces of the parents knowing that their child wasn’t coming out of the house. Arriving at the scene of car accidents that were almost too awful to believe. Right now, as he put his hand on Patrice’s cheek, considering the slope of his nose and the shape of his mouth, letting the fear of loss wash over him fully now, and the weight and ache of his own shortcomings and mistakes, he felt what he could only describe as complete devastation. He wanted nothing more than to pretend that he and Patrice were the only two people on Earth, just for a little while. Because the pain was too much. He couldn’t bear it. He knew that if he let his mind go down that path, especially with the way he was now… he just wasn’t sure if he’d come back.

Patrice watched him blink, three times. Brad refocused his eyes finally and took a deep settling breath.

“You okay?” Patrice said softly. He’d been watching Brad sit in silence for the past few minutes. 

It still took him a moment to reply, stopping to clear his throat. “Yeah, I’m alright. You’re alright?”

“I’m okay. We’re going to be okay.” Patrice said it with confidence that Brad knew he didn’t have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! brad's going through it right now, but I swear to you all the next chapter is angst free. I think. :)


	5. the creek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> skinny dipping.
> 
> why is brad trans? because I said so.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to teach you to hunt.” Brad declared. “Our food has almost run out, it’s about time.” He was laying halfway in the bubbling creek that ran about a quarter mile from the cabin, with his back propped against a large stone that had been smoothed by the water. It was peaceful here, with the soft bubbling of the water moving quickly over stones and the chattering of songbirds flitting around over their heads. He and Elaine used to escape here while their families were at the camp together. He’d always feel weightless as they dashed into the sparkling water together, and it felt right to be here again, but this time with Patrice. 

“You can’t catch me!” she screamed, streaking down to the edge to scoop up some soft mud, ready to hurl it at Brad.

“You butthole! Yes I can!” He always ran slower while he was laughing. He never could catch her.

Patrice was treading towards the middle of the creek, where it got just deep enough to go over his head. 

“Brad? Did you hear me?” He looked nervous, and Brad realized just how deep in his memory he’d been for a moment. Patrice was obviously scared of the possibility of being bit by something, and he jumped every time anything foreign would touch him in the water. Brad laughed at him every single time. “I said, why don’t you hunt, and I’ll just watch like the good house-husband I am.”

The warm rock relaxed the muscles in Brad’s shoulders and he stretched luxuriously. “Mmm, but what if my arms fall off? Someone will have to provide for this family, goddamnit!” He scooped some water up with cupped palm and tossed it over to where Patrice’s head and shoulders were above water and caught him square in the face.

“Marchy, I swear,” Patrice sputtered, “I just think I’d feel bad to kill a deer. They’re so beautiful.”

“It’s okay, Bergy, you can say you think about Bambi.” Brad laughed as he ran a hand through his hair.

Today had been the best day he’d had since before the fever. Brad had woken up with Patrice draped over him, as usual, and for breakfast they walked until they found some raspberry bushes, full and ripe in the August sun. Patrice had brought the empty plastic gallon ice cream bucket they used for gathering and it bounced on his thigh as they walked with a cheery thunk. However, Brad insisted that they just lay underneath the tree and pick and eat what they could reach. It was fun, and it was good for the both of their spirits. Brad adored the way Patrice turned boyish and giggly when he’d press berries into his mouth with his thumb. Now, their clothes waved from the low-hanging tree branches like festival flags as they soaked in the creek, and Bergy’s lips were stained a pretty pink.

“Do you remember when you first came to the station?” Patrice swam over to where Brad was spread out and assumed a similar position on the stone nearest to him, their elbows close enough to touch. A wet leaf had stuck to Brad’s shoulder, and Patrice pulled it off and put it on top of his head.

“No, I forgot.” Brad paused, waiting for Patrice to roll his eyes. “Yes, of course I remember.”

“I don’t think you wore a shirt for that whole first week except when we had to go out on calls.” He was studying Brad’s upper body now, smiling wistfully. 

“Oh. Well,” Brad ran a hand down his own chest, stopping to scratch at his belly. “I heard someone whispering to you on my first day, talking about me, about how I was a trans guy. And I didn’t want that to be some kind of big secret, I guess.” 

Brad swished his feet in the water. He’d never been ashamed of being transgender. Sometimes he kind of forgot about it, really. In his own world with his friends and Bergy, he never had to think about it anymore. He was happy with his body, and had been for a long time. The scars from his top surgery didn’t turn out clean and beautiful like he’d imagined, after looking at picture after picture of other guys who had the same thing done and were left with two unobtrusive pale lines on their chest. But, looking down now at his thick twin scars glinting a little shiny and pink in the sunlight, he didn’t mind them at all.

“Well it certainly wasn’t a secret after that. Someone finally had the nerve to ask you about it and you screamed-“

“I’m getting my _money’s worth!!_ ”

“-that you were getting your money’s worth before they could even finish the question,” Patrice burst into laughter at the memory. It was the first time Brad had hear him really laugh hard since their arrival at the camp. 

Patrice crowded into Brad’s space, pushing off the stones in the bottom of the creek. He put both his wet hands squarely on his chest and was clearly overjoyed when Brad yelped, “Fuck, that’s cold!” 

“Get into the water with me,” Patrice said through his lashes, knowing he’d get his way. Brad was human, and the last time they’d allowed themselves to relax around each other seemed like years ago. It’d been all business and survival, out of necessity. 

Led by the hand, Brad let himself be pulled to the deeper water. Patrice wrapped his legs around his waist and his arms around his shoulders and brought handfuls of water up to run through Brad’s hair, just to watch the droplets fall to his shoulders.

As he held Patrice in his arms, Brad wondered if this was going to be their life forever, just the two of them. It might not be so bad.

“When did you fall in love with me?” he asked, brushing his lips against Patrice’s ear on purpose.

“I’ve told you that story a thousand times,” Bergy sighed, lifting his head to look at Brad.

Brad knew his poker face was awful.

“I mean,” he swallowed, “I wouldn’t mind telling it again.” Patrice smoothed out Brad’s eyebrow with his thumb, trying to save the moment. Clearing his throat dramatically, he began, “It was the moment I met you.”

“Okay, I know my memory is shit, but that is absolutely not what happened.” Bergy might’ve hated him the first three months they were together at the station. Okay, well hate is a pretty strong word, but he distinctly remembered some words like “liability” and “impulsive” being thrown at him. Nothing he didn’t already know, he’d always tell himself.

“You’re right. I knew I was completely infatuated with you for… a while. But I didn’t know I was in love with you until, well, we’d been dating for about five months or so? Maybe it was longer than that.” Patrice got distracted scratching at Brad’s scraggly beard, and he couldn’t help but preen under the attention. “I’d come over for supper, and you had made these little filet mignon steaks?” He laughed at Brad’s raised eyebrows, “No, I didn’t fall in love because of the food. But that certainly helped- _don’t splash me_ \- okay, okay, seriously. We were cleaning up the kitchen, I was washing the dishes and you were drying, and everything was so easy. I was so happy. I felt like I was home. And I looked at you, and I knew that uh,” 

Brad was wracking his mind, searching for that memory, and he imagined it in his mind’s eye. It wasn’t a memory, it was like remembering a photograph that he’d seen or something like that.. 

“It’s okay.” Patrice kissed him on the tip of his nose. “I knew that I loved you.”

He couldn’t help but flush a little bit. “Buddy, if I’d’ve known washing the dishes was all it took, we would’ve been doing that on our first date.”

“Oh shut up. When did you fall in love with me, then, huh?” Patrice snuck in a kiss on the mouth.

“Day one, baby,” Brad smirked.

“No, really, I want to know, I feel like you’ve never told me.” Patrice disentangled himself from Brad, but they stayed close.

“I’m being serious. Day one. You told me off for like three things that literally meant nothing. I think I left the oven on or something in the kitchen at the station. And then I kept leaving my socks everywhere. Remember how you hated that? I was obsessed with you. You didn’t think I was shit. It was great.” Brad said wistfully.

Patrice could only gape at him for a moment. “You are… so strange.”

“But you love me.” said Brad, as if he needed further assurance.

“Yes. I love you.” he answered, and Brad knew that he meant it. “Now let’s head back to the house, I’m starting to get really wrinkly.”

Patrice pulled himself out of the water onto the stone that Brad was sunning himself on earlier to dry off to the tune of Brad’s wolf whistle.

“It’s a good thing no one else is out here to see how sexy you look right now, Bergy.” 

“I’m actually begging you to stop.” Patrice groaned.

“It’s like I always said, it’d have to be the end of the world before Saint Patrice would go skinny dipping with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is one of my favorite chapters. hope you enjoyed a break from the angst.


	6. the hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which brad has a good time and patrice has a reluctantly alright time
> 
> see end notes for spoilery tws and also an important message

He followed Marchy out the door that evening when he announced without preamble that he was going stargazing. It was quite late, and the first clear night in a few days. Brad promptly laid down on the ground with his hands tucked behind his head. The cool of the night was beginning to creep into the earth as autumn swiftly approached- Patrice could feel the cold seep through his jacket as he laid on the hard ground. He wriggled closer to Brad for warmth as they both looked up at the night sky.

They were so bright- not only were they deep in the forest, but Patrice suspected that the nearest towns must still be without power because there was an utter lack of light pollution. He’d never seen this many, not even in the planetarium from when he was a boy. He felt like he should be in awe of the cosmic wonders before him, but as he stretched out next to Brad, the stars felt too close. Heavy. Suffocating. They were huge and consumed the sky, and they seemed so close that if he reached his hand up he’d be able to pluck one out of the air. They weren’t a comfort. They were a million eyes, always vigilant, waiting for him to make a wrong move. 

Brad let out a long sigh of contentment and reached for his hand.

He took Brad’s hand and interlocked their fingers, but he closed his eyes. The stars were alive, breathing, watching him. His head buzzed with the weight of them. It would be so easy to sink into the earth, and fall straight down into the molten core without a sound. Patrice felt like he was spinning, dizzy underneath the sky and with the realization that he wasn’t in control. He never really was, never had been. The stars out here just made it so clear. 

It was like the trees- the trees here were different than the manicured trees that decorated the city. They were ancient and knowledgeable. You could sense that they were alive. You could feel their earth shaking exhalations, the deep groans of their very souls. But they didn’t welcome Patrice. He knew that they only tolerated him. 

Fuck, what was wrong with him? 

“What are you thinking about?” Brad asked suddenly, snapping him out of his contemplations.

Patrice looked over to him, trying to make out his face in the dark. “Deer,” he lied.

“Hmm.” Brad knew he was lying, probably, but he didn’t probe further. “You ready to get one in the morning?”

He squeezed Brad’s hand and his eyes shut tighter at the same time. “Sure.”

-

 

“Try not to look so pleased,” Patrice grumbled, trudging behind Brad through some of the earliest fallen leaves. 

“You’ve finally agreed to join me in one of my all-time favorite activities. My favorite person and my favorite thing. And you want me to not be pleased?” Brad did look almost unnaturally cheerful with a rifle in his hand and a bag slung over his shoulder. He’d insisted that he carry everything out to the stand- Patrice knew that he still felt a little guilty about the black and blue he’d left on his thighs and then on his biceps after his episode. 

It had rained that night after they’d gone in from their brief stargaze, and the ground was damp as dawn had yet to break. Drops of water kept falling on the two of them as the breeze rustled the wet leaves. “For the record,” Patrice added, “I still wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t necessary.” A particularly large drop caught the back of his neck and he shivered. 

That was kind of the thing- it was necessary for their survival, but then it also seemed necessary to keep up Brad’s camping trip charade, at least for now. Ever since his breakdown after that first week, he’d been acting like they were on some kind of vacation, not evacuees. Patrice was hesitant to try to break character, though, because if this was what Brad needed right now, then that was alright. And he supposed it wasn’t hurting anything. What was the alternative? Crying?

“Ah! There she is. I was getting a little worried we’d been walking the wrong way,” Brad said, pointing to a tree stand bolted to a sturdy pine with some of its branches removed. 

Patrice did his best to not roll his eyes too hard at that comment as he sized up the stand. It didn’t look too rickety, thank God, but it was a pretty basic structure- a metal ladder leading up to a simple platform with a railing around it. It definitely did not appear large enough for two firefighters to sit comfortably in, but Brad was already making his way up the ladder and motioning for him to follow behind. 

“Usually I would bring snacks and stuff, but we’re fresh out of snacks. At least until you bag us our snacks for the next couple weeks,” Brad said with a wink as Patrice reluctantly clambered up the ladder. The metal was rusty and flaky under his fingers, and he fought the urge to violently wipe them off on his pants once he was able to wiggle into the cramped stand with Brad. There was a built in bench to sit, and they could barely both sit down on it. Half of Patrice’s ass was hanging off the edge.

He straightened up a bit, fighting vertigo, and put on a half-smile for Brad’s sake. “I’m okay without snacks.” Brad was acting like this was Christmas come early. 

Oh boy. 

“Okay, Bergy, I brought you my .22. It’s a double rifle.” Brad announced, holding it out for him to take.

He took it from Brad and nodded like those words meant something to him.

“It’s got less recoil than my 28 gauge. I mean you can barely feel it, so that should be better for you,” he said, making a vague gesture to indicate his bruising. “In fact, I’ve seen six-year olds shoot this thing. Not they they should’ve been. But what I’m saying is that it should be just right for you.” 

Patrice looked up from the rifle after that comment to find a shit-eating grin waiting for him. “Great. Thank you, Bradley. That’s very thoughtful.”

“That’s really all besides the point, considering my 28 gauge wouldn’t do anything to a deer but really inconvenience it,” Brad said. “That’s for waterfowl and stuff like that.”

Brad quickly went over the basics, showing him how to properly hold the gun and where to put his head and how to aim. Patrice paid careful attention with only some reluctance because he really didn’t want to mess up and somehow accidentally shoot Brad or something.

“It’s going to have to be a pretty accurate shot with this gun. Under normal circumstances, hunting deer with this caliber gun would be considered unethical, and I’m pretty sure it’s actually illegal here.” He shrugged, like that was totally no big deal. “So you’ve got to pop this thing in the noggin straight off, otherwise you’re going to feel really bad about it,” he continued with a thin-lipped smile.

“Um… what do you mean by that?” 

“I mean that it’s not really a deer hunting rifle. It hasn’t got a powerful enough shot that it’ll just kill the deer unless you hit it in either the brain or the lungs. If we were doing this under normal hunting circumstances, I’d use my bow, cause that’s what I always hunt deer with, but I think it’s at my brother’s place. I’m working with what I’ve got, here. Also, if you miss and wound it, I don’t know if we’ll be able to track it down to finish it off. There might not be a good enough blood trail.”

Just the thought of having to follow a trail of blood to ‘finish off’ a hurt creature made Patrice feel queasy. 

“Well, you’re a good shot, so we shouldn’t have any problems here,” Patrice concluded, adjusting himself on the tiny bench. He carefully moved to hand the rifle back to Brad, feeling relieved that he would soon have it out of his hands.

Brad wouldn’t take it.

“What are you giving me this for?” Brad asked, as if he wasn’t probably perversely enjoying Patrice’s distress over this entire situation. 

“Brad,” he said, already exasperated, “you just said that it’s going to have to be an accurate shot to kill this deer, and that’s if we even have good luck today. I’m not a good shot, you know I haven’t had any practice. I swear I’ll practice later, but you need to get this one. There’s no way that I-”

“Nope.” Brad interrupted, popping the ‘p’. “This one’s on you. If we’re going home with supper, it’ll be your shot.”

Patrice pushed the rifle towards Brad with a little more force, trying to make him take it. “Ha-ha. Yeah, right.”

“You think I’m joking?” Brad frowned, shoving back, suddenly serious. 

“I _hope_ you’re joking. Otherwise you’re insane. Just do this, and we’ll come back out here. Hell, we can come back later today if you want and I’ll practice my shot. But you need-”

“No. I know you. And I know this is the only way I’ll be able to get you to do this. You have to be able to do this, because I don’t know the future.” Brad lowered his voice after he heard a branch snap in the distance. “Kill this deer and we’ll have something to eat. Once you do it, it’ll be no big deal to you anymore.”

Patrice knew that tone of voice. That was Brad’s “you aren’t winning this fight” voice. 

Awesome.

He sighed, accepting his fate. “You’d better not get mad at me when I inevitably miss. Just remember who is holding the gun, hm?”

Brad’s face lightened again when he realized he’d gotten his way. “Good man. And don’t worry, I’m going to help you. But for now, we both really need to shut up if we want anything to come our way.”

-

It was over an hour and a half before they saw any other living creature besides each other.

He’d almost gotten comfortable, Brad was warm and still beside him, and it was early enough that his body still wanted to go back to sleep. Finally, _finally_ , as Patrice was nodding off, Brad poked him hard in the thigh.

“Look,” he mouthed, and miracle of miracles, there was a buck stepping into the clearing ahead of them. 

The deer’s hot breath steamed out of his nostrils, making clouds of vapor that swirled around its face for moments at a time as it sniffed around. The sun had crested the horizon, and the scene sparkled. The buck was large and obviously healthy. It was all muscle and strength, although it moved with an eerie motion as if it were weightless. 

Patrice looked directly into its glossy black eye through the sight on the rifle. 

The world was so still that he could hear the heavy snorting of the deer as its hooves crinkled the leaves beneath it.

“There he is,” Brad instructed in barely a whisper, his hot breath sending goosebumps down Patrice’s arms, “get him in your sights.” 

Brad wrapped a hand around his shoulder and adjusted the butt of the rifle to his liking, further into the meat of Patrice’s arm and off of his collarbone. 

“Okay, just like I told you,” Patrice didn’t dare take his eyes off his target, “take the safety off, line it up, that’s good, baby,” now was not a great time to realize he was holding his breath, “lean into it more, yeah, okay, now don’t flinch.” 

He willed himself to pull the trigger as the deer pulled its head up from where it was grazing.

“Make the shot.” 

Patrice didn’t even really hear the gun fire. It was so loud and so close it just felt like pressure against his ears. When he dared to lower the gun and look out, it was clear that he’d been true to his target.

He took a deep breath to let out a triumphant yell, but before he could get it out, Brad slapped his hand over Patrice’s mouth.

“Shh!”

The buck stumbled, eyes rolling back and flashing white before it dropped. Its legs kicked out fruitlessly into the air, exposing the pale underbelly, a stark contrast against the various shades of brown that covered the ground.

“Wait till you’re sure- don’t want to startle it,” Brad was positively breathless with excitement, “adrenaline, you know-” 

The body of the deer stilled. He had killed it.

“Yes! Yes yes yes! Oh my god,” Brad blurted out as he grabbed Patrice’s face with both hands and kissed him on the mouth. “That was so se-” and yeah, he definitely stopped himself from saying sexy, “That was so good. I’m so proud of you.”

Patrice could only nod, eyes still fixed on the body some fifty yards in front of them.

“C’mon, get out, my legs are cramping.” Brad urged, finally snapping him out of his trance. 

He made his way down the ladder with slightly shaky movements, thrilled that he somehow hadn’t messed this up and also with the heady knowledge that he personally had just shot a living creature and ended its life. 

As soon as Brad got his boots on the ground, he ran out past Patrice to inspect their kill. 

“Oh man,” Patrice heard him yell back, “get your ass over here. This thing is a monster.” 

He finally caught up to Brad but couldn’t bring himself closer than a few feet away. “Oh,” Patrice said, finally taking in the size, “it’s even bigger than I thought.”

Blood was oozing down the buck’s face and neck, and a fresh rivulet ran down it’s coarse hair as Brad lifted the head by the antlers.

“It’s a nine pointer, see?” Brad quickly counted the pointy ends on the antlers and ran the pad of his thumb over the sharp ends.

“Yeah,” Patrice nodded, at a loss for words again. He’d never been so close to a deer. A rush of adrenaline coursed through him. Maybe some ancient hunting instinct had been awoken within him. Or maybe his breath still got caught in his chest sometimes when he knew Brad was truly proud of him. “Where’s the tarp? We can go ahead and start dragging it back, I suppose.”

Brad only smiled up at him, except with the smile that meant nothing but trouble. Patrice should’ve known better to think that this ordeal was all over.

“Not yet. This is your first deer,” he practically giggled out. “You have to get blooded.”

“I have to get what-ed?” Patrice asked, beyond done with Brad’s shit, even if his smile was marvelously handsome. It was making it very hard for him to be disagreeable. “Actually, I take that back. Whatever it is, no thanks.”

Brad put on his best pout. “But Bergyyy, it’s tradition. Everyone for a thousand centuries has gotten blooded when they kill their first deer. I won’t do too much, I swear. But you have to do it.” And there was that smile.

Patrice scratched at his beard thoughtfully. “A thousand centuries, huh.”

“Yeah, man. A thousand centuries.” 

“If it’s something really gross, I’m going to kill you and no one will ever find your body.” Brad’s thrilled expression after that statement said it all. “Oh, so it’s gross. Cool. Great.”

“Just hold still!” Brad screeched, and in one swift movement he reached down to get his hand wet with the blood of the deer and then brought it to Patrice’s face. He swiped across each cheek, and then one line down his nose. “Ohhh yeah. Perfect.” He took Patrice’s jaw in one hand and admired his handiwork. “Now you’re a real man.”

Patrice scoffed, utterly grossed out, and yet he couldn’t force the smile off his face. He was hopelessly and stupidly soft for Marchy. “I’ll show you a real man,” he laughed as he shoved Brad. 

“I’ll take you up on that offer once we get back to the cabin, eh?” Brad laughed, and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. 

“Alright, well hand me the tarp so we can get back home and I can wash this shit off my face. Then we’ll see about that.” Patrice nudged him with his hip. 

“Oh. Well, I uh, have to field dress it first. I nearly forgot.”

And Patrice was just starting to get excited that it was all over. “Field dress?”

“Cut it’s internal organs out.” 

“Well fuck.” 

“That’s what I’m _trying_ to get to do, just look the other way for a minute-”

“Jesus, Bradley,” and Patrice kept laughing. He felt hysterical for a moment, because this was his life now. Joking about sex while wearing two layers of old clothes deep in the forest with blood striped on his face, and now his boyfriend was going to slice open a deer carcass right in front of him. The deer that he shot. The deer that had his stomach worked in knots as he blinked out at it only moments ago. Cool. 

He did face the opposite direction while Brad worked, and he was thankful that it didn’t take too long. Brad dragged the body onto the tarp and then over to where Patrice stood, and they both took a corner.

“So when we get back, I’ll hang this guy up, and you can wash your face,” Brad instructed.

Patrice could smell the sweet smoke from their fireplace in the distance. The noisy tarp dragged behind them, crunching through dried up leaves and sticks and cutting through the silence of the early morning forest. It left a dark trail in the dew. “Then we can go back to bed? It’s still early.” 

“I have to teach you how to clean the gun, though.” he said firmly. “After that.”

Patrice groaned. “I’m grosser than I’ve ever been maybe in my whole life, which means I should literally be the epitome of sexy to you right now. The gun can wait.”

Brad looked over and gave him a stupidly exaggerated once-over. “As always, you are actually so right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: really nothing except patrice shoots and kills a deer. there's brief mention of blood and brad talks about gutting it but there's no graphic description 
> 
> also... I dont think the three people that are reading this are deer hunters lmao BUT if you are, you know that what I have written here is literally... so bad. don't do this. do not try to kill a deer with a .22. it's _such_ a bad idea. please know that I also know this is a bad idea. I wrote it like this because brad bow hunts but he wouldn't have left a compound at a camp, and the rifle is used for small game and a 28 gauge is used for waterfowl and stuff, both guns that could easily be left in a gun safe and that he would probably use at camp. im just writing this to clear my conscience and let you know im not a total dumbass on some topics


	7. the autumn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see end notes for spoilery tws

Patrice quit keeping close track of the days. It wasn’t worth it. Sometimes it made him upset to think about how much time had already passed. The first hints of colder weather were announced to him slowly, with a blooming lightshow of colors in the trees, Brad’s chilly fingertips creeping underneath his shirt at night, and the joyous discovery of cranberries a few miles from the camp that would be ripe soon. 

He knew that Brad was missing days from his mind. Sometimes weeks at a time. Sometimes they came back, and sometimes they didn’t. If Brad knew they were gone, he never told him. So. That was just that. Patrice thought he might be getting worse. 

Patrice would ask him about something that had happened even a few days prior, and it was if it had never happened in Brad’s mind. He never could keep up with it all enough to know how much would ever come back to him.

*

“I’m going for a walk, I’ll be back before lunch,” Brad announced one morning, already out the door before Patrice could even respond.

He didn’t think a thing of it until it was well past lunch, and Brad still hadn’t returned. Patrice tried to be patient, to wait it out, but as the sun was starting to hang low in the sky, he had a full and sudden realization of his error.

Patrice went out to search for him, calling his name again and again to hear it ring through the trees. The trees’ shadows all around him were tall, stretching their long, dark fingers over the cold earth. 

He finally found him- Brad was walking towards the sound of his voice and calling back. He’d forgotten how to get back to the cabin.

Brad’s eyes were wild with fear, and his ears were red with embarrassment. He begged Patrice not to talk about it.

After that, it became an unspoken agreement between the two of them that Brad couldn’t go too far on his own.

*

Patrice awoke with a start, nearly jumping out of his skin.

A woman’s scream had just rang out through the woods.

“Hey! Marchy, wake up,” he groped towards the shape of Brad in the dark and his hand accidentally smacked him in the face.

Brad groaned. He was so hard to wake up. “Baby, it’s still dark,” he mumbled, shoving Patrice’s hand away with surprising strength. 

“I heard someone scream. Wake up and listen.” His heart was pounding out of his chest- the blood-curdling scream was still echoing in his ears.

Brad sat up with effort. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure, just listen.” Patrice fought the urge to gather Brad to his chest and tried to keep his breathing normal. Even a slow exhale through his nose seemed deafening in the eerily quiet cabin.

And there it was again- it was a woman’s scream, just like before, long and terrifying. There was a pause and another scream, shorter than the last one. This time he did grab Brad’s arm.

Patrice half expected him to jump up and grab the rifle, knowing he’d have to reluctantly follow, but to his surprise, Brad relaxed and flopped back onto the bed.

“S’okay,” he said, patting Patrice’s head in a way that felt awfully condescending. “Just a horny panther.” A few moments later, his breathing evened out, and Patrice knew that he’d gone right on back to sleep.

A panther? And here he was, still sitting straight up in the bed with clammy palms. What if it would’ve been a woman, somewhere out there needing help? With fisted hands, he pushed his knuckles into his eyes.

He wished he could see Brad, but it was too dark. He almost considered waking him up just to be angry at him. Oh God, he wished that panther was a woman. Another person. He loved Brad, but at times like this, in the dead of night, he felt so very alone.

The panther screamed again, long and pained, the sound cutting through the darkness and the peaceful croaking of the frogs like a knife.

Patrice crawled out of bed and sat in the chair in front of the fire until dawn, trying to work out his frustration so he didn’t kill Brad in the morning.

This was Brad’s home. This was his safe place. He knew the name of every tree, every creature, every bird that sang. And this was as far from Patrice’s comfort zone as he had maybe ever been. Something was going to have to give.

By the time the sun had risen, Patrice realized he needed to find a way so that they both could have some space. And by they, he meant himself. Brad tended to get mopey if he was left alone for more than a few hours. But Patrice figured he would survive having some solitary mornings if it meant that he could have some time on his own to adjust. He’d never been a person who could easily spend all day with people, and that included Brad, as much as he loved him. Their survival quite literally depended on their healthy relationship. 

“Good morning,” Patrice greeted Brad as he sleepily stumbled into the living room. “Do you think I could borrow your fishing rod?”

Brad squinted. “Why are you…” he paused to yawn and abandoned his question. “You know what, you don’t even have to ask.”

*

Patrice learned to hunt. He learned to clean his own fish. He learned how to shoot squirrels, and ducks, and snipe, and whatever else that moved and Brad had deemed good to eat. He learned to cook in new ways, and was much better than Brad at that. He learned a lot about Brad, that he was more resilient and resourceful than he would’ve ever thought.

Patrice never learned how to stop obsessively thinking about the past. He never learned to get over the fact that he had regrets from his past life. And he never learned that it was okay to tell Brad how he felt.

*

Things were changing rapidly, especially with the weather. It was getting too cold to stay in the bedroom at night, and so Brad helped Patrice fenaegle the mattress to the living room, right in front of the fire. Thank goodness the cabin had decent insulation. They piled every blanket they had on top, and it ended up being quite cozy. That was something Patrice always had to look forward to, at least- sinking into Brad’s arms at the end of the day, no matter how frustrating or long it was. They were both way overdue for real deodorant and toothpaste, but they kept as clean as they could. When they’d curl up together at night, intertwined to keep warm, Patrice would nestle into the crook of Brad’s neck where it always smelled like soft skin and home. He learned the things that would make Brad smile in their new life and kept them close to his heart, and Brad did the same for him. They had nowhere to be, no put upon obligations besides survival, and that was something that neither man could ever really get used to. Before, if they were spending the night together, they’d get in the bed and watch Netflix together until Patrice usually fell asleep. Brad would turn it off as the credits rolled and would nestle down next to him and that was that. Now there was no distraction from each other, the whole of each other’s bodies and souls. Brad grounded him, always.

In the midst of everything, Brad was still Brad- wholly his own strong personality that Patrice loved. He was sweet, he screamed for no goddamned reason, he tried to do special things just for Patrice but he’d fight him if he got the short end of the wishbone of a duck. He still kissed more infuriatingly gently than anyone Patrice had ever known, and sometimes he was unbearably annoying. 

They were lying in bed one night, having retired fairly early just because they could. Brad loved to be physically close to Patrice, and there was a kind of quiet reverence as he’d drag his nails up his spine, always as if the planes of his body were something new for him to discover each night. And maybe he was. Patrice had learned to stop asking. 

He let himself ease into Brad’s touch and found himself continuing to reflect in the dark silence. He was starting to resent this life- he hated pulling on the same stained and dingy clothes every day, hated stomping around in the cold doing the same chores, hated eating the same things every single day. He jumped at the slightest thing. He was afraid of bugs, and wolves, and bears, and the sound of Brad unexpectedly stepping on a stick behind him. None of this ever seemed to affect Brad, or at least if it did, he never showed it. 

Maybe that was what he needed- for Brad to seem like he, too, was unsettled here. Patrice wasn’t going to complain, especially not to be the first to complain. That wasn’t in his nature. And he didn’t really know what the extent of Brad’s memory problems were, so did he even have any room to complain? It was just that maybe if Brad could share in his discordant emotions, maybe he would feel less alone. 

Was it wrong that he felt alone?, he nearly asked aloud, as Brad continued mapping out his skin with butterfly touches.

*

Weeks later, as the warmth was seemingly sucked from the earth, Patrice could feel himself falling into a depression. His beard was long and scraggly. He’d never had it grown out this much in his life. He and Brad both had probably lost around 20 pounds each, if not more. Brad’s soft belly that Patrice had always adored and loved to kiss had melted away. It had been a long, quiet week. To top it all off, the fish just weren’t biting like they used to.

He always knew he tended to feel more ‘down’ as the sun made shorter and shorter appearances, but his new lifestyle only increased those feelings exponentially. 

It wasn’t Brad. If anything, Brad was what kept him sane. His memory problems seemed to plateau, thank god. He had spent three weeks singing Auld Lang Syne under his breath, a song that he apparently only knew half the words to, which was simultaneously haunting and just really fucking annoying. When he’d finally let that one go, the next thing was the chorus of “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” and Patrice couldn’t decide if that was worse.

There was a day he woke up with a dark cloud hanging over him heavier than before, with his every motion, and as he made his way down to the creek to fish, shivering, he considered what it would be like to end his life. It took as long as the cloud of breath in front of him to dissipate for him to regret the very thought, his brain flashing images of a confused Brad leaning over him, maybe he’d done it with the rifle, so horribly and suddenly alone, the fresh snow stained crimson,

It was also the moment that he realized that as much as he told himself that Brad needed him to survive, he needed Brad just as much. Twice as much. Brad was ready to stay out here as long as it took. 

For weeks, Brad hadn’t even acknowledged his past life. Recently, though, he’d constructed these elaborate and highly improbable fantasies about the other guys from the station, their old friends, how Charlie was probably with Jake and they’d stolen all the candy from every store, how Torey must’ve trained Fenway to sniff out food by now, that Chara and his family were probably living the good life in San Diego, on and on and on. Some part of that was real to him. Patrice could see the sparkle in his eye. 

But Patrice? He wasn’t so sure. He and Brad were doing fine considering the circumstances, sure. But there were more nights than he could count at this point where they both went to bed with growling stomachs. All things considered, they were living the good life- they usually had enough food, they had the essentials as far as tools and clothing, and they certainly had each other. But as Patrice let his own fantasies take place in his mind, they were dark. He’d been in the hospital, he’d seen what it was like. The bodies that came and left his side during that time haunted him. If Chara hadn’t heard from anyone from the station a week and a half after he’d already had the fever… well, his mind could easily fill in those blanks. 

The forest was still no home to him. Was this where he would die? What happened if he got sick again, or injured himself badly out here? And what if he died before Brad? Maybe after a little while Brad’s brain would take care of it, like it seemed it was slowly taking care of everything else and he would forget. He’d be a ghost, and it would be like he had never existed. His old life seemed so far away. Was he really the lieutenant, once? A leader, strong and able to do whatever it took to help others, was to spend his final days scared and cold deep in the Canadian woods. Was that his fate?

All this time, he’d loved Brad. Were they to die out here, never married? Back in Boston, Patrice had told himself that he didn’t need the government or anyone else to acknowledge his commitment in love. Besides that, Brad had never brought it up, and he was usually the one to bring things up like that, so. 

“Brad,” he said, bursting back into the cabin empty handed and an hour earlier than usual. He took a breath to continue when he found Brad carefully weighing lead pellets to refill his shotgun shells, and came up short.

Brad set his things down and wiped his hands off on a rag so grimy it probably made his hands dirtier. “What’s up, you okay?”

“Did you want to marry me? Back in Boston?” Patrice knew how he looked, rosy cheeked from the cold, with his rod still in his hand.

He looked up at him with a blank face, as if this was a trick question. “Did I want to-”

“-did you want to marry me.” Patrice finished for him. His thoughts swirled, growing pale and cold.

Brad paused a moment that felt like an hour, and god, Patrice would’ve given anything to know what was going on in his mind. The folding table in front of him had been turned into his shotgun shell reloading area, and it was a complete disarray of shells and containers of lead shot and gunpowder and little plastic inserts. He found himself annoyed at Brad’s mess for no reason, and his resentment at their situation swiftly surged back. 

“Well, Bergy, I uh…” Brad rubbed his hand on the back of his neck, sheepish, silent. 

Oh. 

Patrice swallowed, drawing his own conclusions. 

“Forget it.” 

“Aw, come on Bergy, just, let’s…” Brad couldn’t find the words, his mouth opening and closing like the stupid fish Patrice pulled out of the creek day after day. “I just…uh, well…”

The dark cloud in his mind came back tenfold. 

“I said forget it.” Patrice said, cold. “I’m sure you’ll be able to do that.” 

Brad turned back towards him with his face full of disbelief for a split second before it flashed to anger. “Oh, fuck you.”

And that’s what Patrice was looking for. He _needed_ this, he wanted this tension, he wanted to snap-

“Fuck me? Nah. Fuck you.” 

He took a step closer to Brad, who stood and raised his chin, as if he was actually squaring up. Ha. 

“Okay, I’m not sure what’s got you so worked up, but whatever the fuck is going on, we can-”

“No, we can’t. We can’t. You know fucking why?” Patrice’s blood was hot, hot, hot, and the tiny voice scratching at the back of his mind that Brad was not what he was truly angry at was consumed by the fire that had been growing since they’d arrived. He felt itchy all over. “You know fucking why, Brad? Because you brought me all the way out here, in the middle of fucking nowhere. So now we _can’t_ do anything. We’re going to die here.” He pushed closer towards Brad and slammed his hand down on the desk, sending the lead pellets scattering everywhere. “Because of you. You’re incapable of making a rational decision. You always have been.”

Patrice sucked in a wet gasp, suddenly on the verge of tears, and Brad just stood there, face completely neutral, probably waiting for him to finish. “God _damnit_ , Marchy, we have no way of knowing who’s out there. What’s even safe, if anything is still,” he swallowed thickly, “but we’re out here living out your little pioneer fantasy, so it’s all fine and good, eh? Well, I’m glad being out here makes you happy. I really am. But this is not what I ever wanted. I want to go home, more than anything. So I just can’t… I can’t keep playing this little game like this is all okay.” 

Patrice expected Brad to snap right back and cut him to the bone. He wanted him to. But instead, he just stared back at him, shell-shocked.

“I’m going for a walk,” he said, very quietly, as he attempted to push past Patrice to leave the room.

“No.” He caught him by the shoulder. “You’re not.”

“Fine. Then _you’re_ going for a walk. And don’t you fucking come back until supper,” Brad murmured, voice hollow. 

Patrice nodded, and all but bolted out of the door after he’d grabbed his coat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: brief suicide mention
> 
> thanks for reading! check back on monday to read chapter 8: the notebook  
> it's pretty much the final chapter because chapter 9 is just an epilogue so im very excited to share it with you all!


	8. the notebook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time to go

“Ah, fuck,” he muttered, sniffing hard to avoid having to wipe his snot on his already gross shirt sleeve. 

That was a disaster. After everything, he’d really fucked up royally. One of them were bound to lose their temper after a while, but he’d never blown up like that on Brad before. Not really. 

Once he’d left dishes everywhere in the kitchen at the fire station, and Patrice had really let him have it. He hated a mess. His heart ached at the memory. 

And if Brad-

His mind stopped him.

And if Brad hadn’t wanted to get married, then that was okay too. It wasn’t really the most opportune time to ask about it, anyway.

Another hard sniff was in order.

But now it was time to push those things away and make it up to Brad, to show him that he was sorry and that he was ready to try to make things right. He probably didn’t deserve forgiveness, but he was going to do whatever it took to get it. 

He returned to the cabin a little after sundown with a ferociously empty stomach and a pailful of cranberries from the swampy marsh that he always refused to go in because it was gross.

-

Patrice knocked on the old wooden front door for the first time.

It was unlocked, it always was. But he wanted Brad to let him back in.

He knocked once, three quick raps, and paused. He knocked again, louder, after no answer.

“Brad?” 

He hoped his voice carried over the sound of the wind that was picking up and sending dead leaves swirling through the evening air. It was going to rain soon, he thought, just as a few heavy drops began to hit the earth. He waited a beat longer before letting himself in, having to shoulder his way in to get the water-swollen door to open. No use in getting wet in the rain, after all.

Brad was sitting up in the slightly gross armchair facing away from the door in front of the fire. 

“Marchy.” Patrice cleared his throat. “Brad.”

He didn’t move.

“I’m sorry,” he began, the slats of wood under his feet creaking beneath his shifting weight, “I’m sorry for everything I said. I didn’t mean it. I’ve been frustrated, and I’d been keeping it in. I just lost my cool and everything came out at once.” He felt sick, like the time he’d nearly tripped over a dead sturgeon that’d washed ashore, bloated and sunbleached and horrifying. 

The table where Brad had been reloading shotgun shells was tipped on its side, and the gunpowder was spilled out of its sack. Empty red plastic shells littered the ground like confetti. Brad was messy, but even Patrice knew that that gunpowder needed to be swept up right away. Jeez.

“I’m just so used to being in control, used to being able to have command over a situation and be a leader, and being here has made me feel really helpless. And I should’ve talked to you about it instead of… what I did.”

The place was a complete wreck. He finally took it all in- things were knocked off shelves, the other chair overturned, the fire was burning low- Brad must’ve gotten angry after he left and then taken his anger out on their furniture. 

“Baby, I’m so sorry. I know you must be still upset.” 

He wanted Brad to invite him back in. He wanted him to give his forgiveness, and ask him to come and lay down next to him. Patrice ached for Brad’s touch as if he hadn’t felt it for years. 

Brad still didn’t respond.

“I went down to the edge of that swampy place and brought you back a bunch of cranberries. I know you like them.” He swallowed. “I love you so much.”

The strangest thing of it all was that Brad hadn’t moved at all. Not even a twitch. 

Patrice remembered the last time Brad had gotten really upset, how he was so careful to not upset himself after that-

“Brad?” Patrice began walking around to face him. 

Brad was sitting slumped to one side, body relaxed, with his eyes open. 

Patrice gasped so hard he saw white. The pail of cranberries dropped and they bounced wildly around him. 

“Hey! Hey hey hey. Brad. Baby.” Patrice was hysterical. He kneeled in front of him, his knees crushing some berries and leaving his pants stained red. “Oh God, hey, hey,” he put his hands on his chest and brought his face up close to Brad’s. He was still breathing. 

“I can’t do this again, baby, I need you with me,” he said with a shaky voice. “Can you hear me?” He cupped Brad’s cheeks with his hands and turned his head back and forth gently. 

“Shit. Shit shit shit-“

His eyes weren’t tracking.

Patrice couldn’t cry again. He’d already cried once today. His eyes burned with the force of his fear. 

He lifted Brad’s eyelids open wider with his thumbs very gently, and when he released, he blinked once but kept his eyes open. 

It was so strange to see him so still, so see his face so relaxed and unsmiling. He looked so young. Or maybe Patrice’s mind was fucking with him. 

“Baby, please,” he whispered, unbuttoning Brad’s flannel a few buttons down at the top with trembling hands. He pushed his hand under his shirt and laid it on Brad’s bare chest, rubbing his thumb across his collarbone. “It’s Bergy, I’m here with you.”

Okay, time to get a grip. The emergency medical training was still within him. 

“I’m here with you, I’m going to take care of you. You’re safe right here with me.” Patrice leaned forward and kissed Brad’s forehead. His temperature was fine. “I know you’ll be back to me in just a minute, hm?”

Patrice glanced around their little room and his eyes landed on Brad’s notebook laying on top of the pile of his things. He didn’t usually leave it out, he kept it tucked underneath his side of the mattress. 

“Brad, you left your notebook out, you see that?” 

Brad was still looking out into the distance at nothing. Patrice didn’t know what to do. 

They stayed like this for hours, with Brad slumped in his chair and Patrice doting on him, gently rubbing his arms and touching his face as if he could push his own life into Brad’s skin. He gave him a near constant stream of dialogue, telling him little stories, telling him that he loved him. Eventually Brad’s eyelids began to droop, and Patrice realized it was far past when they usually stayed up. 

He lifted Brad from where he sitting and moved him to their bed. Months ago it wouldn’t have been too difficult for him to pick Brad up, but now it scared him just how light he felt in his arms. He laid him very carefully on his side, and the thought briefly flickered through his mind how ridiculous it would be if Brad survived all of this just to aspirate in his sleep-

He reached down to smooth out Brad’s grown-out hair and was pleased to find that he had closed his eyes and was taking long, deep breaths and appeared to be asleep. After staring down at him for another few minutes, Patrice decided it was finally alright to get up and throw some more logs on the fire.

When he returned to Brad’s side, he had picked up his notebook along the way. He’d seen Brad write every night in this five-subject notebook, making careful and tiny inscriptions, filling all of the space on each page. Then each morning before he left the bed, he would read over everything he’d written, sometimes twice through. Maybe he’d written something this afternoon while Patrice was away before his brain had checked out. It was worth looking to see.

When Patrice opened the front plastic cover of the notebook, a piece of paper neatly folded in half fell into his lap. “Bergy” was written on the front of it in Brad’s chicken-scratch. It was dated at least two weeks earlier, he wasn’t exactly sure. Brad kept up with dates, and he didn’t, not really. Patrice carefully unfolded the papers and began to read.

_Patrice Bergeron-Cleary,_

_I used your whole name because this is an important document._

He had drawn a little smiley face after that sentence.

_You see, if you’re reading this, I must be dead, because one of your things is that you don’t snoop in my shit, and I really appreciate that about you. Even though I love to snoop in the junk drawers at your place (sorry.) But now’s not really the time for confessions of all the batteries I’ve stolen from you over the years. I don’t trust my brain anymore, and since I had the fever I knew it was only a matter of time before it gave up the ghost. Don’t be mad at me, I’m doing my best. If I die some other way before that, at least you’ll be able to say I survived the fever._

_You should have enough gasoline to get you back to Boston, or at least really close, if that’s what you want to do. I’ve siphoned all the gas out of all the appliances and the boat out back. It’s in the red containers in the bedroom closet. In the next couple of pages I wrote out directions for you on how to get back to Boston, as well as directions to drive to the nearest town. There weren’t many people there even before the plague, but it’s worth a shot. There should be a fold out map in the desk drawer, and that’ll get you to Halifax. Don’t drive much faster than 50 or 55, and don’t go too much slower than that if you can help it, either. It’ll save gas._

_Everything in the house is yours. There should be enough rounds left for you to use in the rifle for while if you don’t go crazy, so don’t waste them if you can help it. Be careful if you decide to go back. You’re a good person, and you never would believe just how evil other people can be. If I die before winter’s through, that’s my bad. You’ll be okay though, just be sure you always have more firewood than you think. I hope we’ll have enough meat stocked away for you in case there’s a blizzard or something. I had some cans of pineapples, and I hid those in the bedroom closet for you (sorry again). Try not to get scurvy._

_I hate to be so morbid in my death letter, but if I die while the ground is frozen, you’ll just have to burn me on a pyre or something like that. That’d actually be pretty dope. If you have to use a little bit of gas to help you out, I think there should be enough. (use what’s in the blue container.) If you can dig a hole, that’s fine too, but don’t wear yourself out over it, ok?_

_Bergy, I need you to know that this is for the best- me before you, I mean. I knew a long time ago that I didn’t want to live in a world without you. I don’t think I could live without you. This isn’t what I envisioned for our future, but every day with you I count as a blessing. I wanted so much for you, for us. I hoped that we would get old and gross together, and we could go to the grocery store every day just because that’s what old people do. There never could’ve been enough time with you. I know I’m a lot to handle, and it’s been hard for me to get my brain to do anything like it used to, and I know it seems like I never take anything seriously. I was trying to let my head take it easy, and I didn’t want to worry you. But after everything, you still loved me. And I love you._

_My heart is breaking because I never want to be without you. But I need you to go on for me here. You are so important to me, and you are so important to the world. There is more for you on this earth, I can feel it. My heart is breaking, Patrice. But humans are so very resilient, and we’ve both learned this after years of fires and wrecks and everything disastrous inbetween. Soon there will be a time for you where all of this is only a distant memory, like a strange dream you had once. There is more for you to do and love and know, so please consider this as a happy memory, if you can. How happy we were together._

_You know, at the station, people used to always talk about how great we were, and how we had great chemistry. They’d always talk about how perfect you are. I just want you to know that I agree with them._

_I love you always. I can’t wait to haunt you._

_Your one and only,_

_Brad_

_A.k.a. Nose-Faced Killah_

_A.k.a. Sweetie-Pie (Yes, I remember the one time you let that one slip.)_

His whole world was this: the trembling sheet of paper in his hands, the soft glow and heat of the fire that flickered over their faces, and his hand that he couldn’t bring himself to take off of Brad’s stomach, the rise and fall of it proving that it wasn’t all over, not yet. 

“How could I have-” he whispered aloud, unable to finish. 

His soul ached. 

Patrice gently turned Brad’s wrist to check his watch- it was nearly midnight already. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep, he could barely tear his eyes away from his face long enough to read, much less to go sleep.

Brad was peaceful. Patrice leaned down to kiss his forehead and silently wished him good dreams before picking up the notebook again.

He quickly flipped through the next few pages, and they were nearly black where Brad had done the math for varying situations- words crossed over and then rewritten, and ink blotches where he’d let the pen stand for too long. Notations where he’d been figuring out how much gasoline they had and how much they needed, and then finally a number circled several times. More math. Pages of math. Mile approximations, gas mileage, speed estimations, plus extra on all numbers just in case. The same equations run through dozens of times- Brad had never trusted himself with the final answer, even before the fever. After that was just as he had written in his letter, directions on how to return to Boston. They were admittedly very… _Brad_ … in the way they were written, half of it was based on landmarks and not actual road markings. However, in the case that all of these ‘landmarks’ were still there, as he read through the directions, he believed that they would do just fine.

Brad sniffed once but stayed sound asleep. Patrice took that as a good sign and settled in for a long night.

The next few pages were like an instruction manual for how to survive, the practical part two of Brad’s planned farewell. How to load the rifle, a crude illustration of a deer along with directions detailing how to dress and butcher it, a few quick notes about some local poisonous plants. Waterfowl that were good to eat, birds that weren’t. Things that were edible in a pinch, things that would make him sick to his stomach. There wasn’t a lot of organization, and it was all written out in Brad’s trademark quick and sloppy handwriting. A lot of the information was obsolete to him by now. Most of this stuff Brad had taught him weeks ago. That meant Brad must’ve started writing all of this down the first night they got there. 

There were a few blank pages in the middle, perhaps where he was leaving space to write more things down as they came to him. The following pages were where Brad had written for himself.

There were pages and pages of memories- At first, just listing- He’d written down the names of all of his family members and connected them with lines like a family tree. Patrice was surprised to find his own name connected to Brad’s with a little line. It was also clear that he’d done his best to make a log of each day they’d been out there, but for whatever reason there were still large gaps of time missing from his entries. Then there were memories that must’ve come to him at some point and he wrote them down as best he could. There were many paragraphs from his childhood, usually featuring someone named Elaine. As Patrice read on, he recognized the places that Brad was describing. His memories with Elaine must’ve been triggered by being back here, at the cabin. He also was present for a lot of the stories in the notebook- Torey’s wedding, the huge fire at the gas station that took them hours and hours to get under control, the time Jake laughed so hard he actually peed a little bit. There were big life events, and things so small that they’d even slipped from Patrice’s memory. They must’ve still held significance for Brad. Sometimes it would just be a few quick sentences, and sometimes it was so detailed it made Patrice’s cheeks burn with how personal it was. Their first date, then a time when Patrice had lent him his coat and the sleeves were way too long but he wore it all the way home anyway, his memories of the first time they’d slept together. It felt like he was reading something he shouldn’t, like a diary, but now that he’d started he couldn’t bring himself to stop. 

He read until his eyes burned, until his head kept dropping on it’s own as he tried to force himself awake. The sky was just starting to lighten to grey when he decided it would be okay to let himself lie next to Brad.

His intention wasn’t to sleep, but he must’ve dozed off on accident, because the next thing he knew the sun was streaming through the window and their fire had died down to just glowing coals. Patrice jerked awake, reaching for Brad to see how he was.

Brad opened his eyes slowly, blinking up at him when he leaned over his face. “Hey.”

He’d never felt such relief in his entire life. He touched Brad’s cheeks and kissed him on the forehead again. “How are you feeling?”

He didn’t answer right away. He turned his head slightly where he was laying and saw his notebook open on the bed. “Someone’s been snooping,” he murmured.

-

Brad came back to him slowly. He elected not to answer most of his questions, and frowned so hard when he started to apologise about the day before that he stopped before he could even get started. He came to sit at the table for a meal around midday, and Patrice salvaged most of the cranberries that had been spilled all over the floor. He ate them individually, like he was considering each one. He took about two bites of fish and then laid down back on the mattress, perfectly still until the evening.

Patrice was full of nervous energy and forced himself not to hover over Brad the entire day, but it was difficult. He probably needed to be out cutting some more firewood, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the cabin yet. It could wait one more day.

As Patrice went back to their bed to see if Brad wanted to get up for some supper, Brad beat him to the punch and sat up like he’d been struck with electricity.

“We have to go back tomorrow,” he said, with the casual air of someone announcing the end of a vacation. 

Patrice let his words hang in the air for a moment. “Are you sure? You’ve been-”

“-yes, I know. My head. I don’t know if it’ll get better, or worse. Worse again. That’s why. We go back to Boston, tomorrow. Before a hard freeze.” Brad was staring into the fire.

As spontaneous as it all was, it actually made sense. Winter was fast approaching, and if they were going to leave before then, they didn’t have a lot of time to lose. Surely enough time had passed that the city was safe, right? It’d been months. And if not, what did they really have to lose at this point? Die here, die there, it made no difference. The dark cloud that had been hounding Patrice’s mind for the past weeks receded. They would just have to figure it out when they got there.

He sat down on the mattress next to Brad. “Do you want to try to go to Halifax first, though?”

He was shaking his head before Patrice had finished the question. “No, no, we’ve got to go to one place and stop. Because of the gas, we won’t have enough to get back unless we go straight there. I want to go home with you.” 

Brad was watching him think, he could feel it.

“You’ll have to drive,” Brad whispered.

“I know, baby.”

-

Patrice thought it’d take him a long time to pack everything up, but he realized just how few possessions they actually had when the SUV was ready to go before nightfall.

Thankfully, Brad was doing even better the next morning, enough to get dressed and grab the quilt and his notebook and load up in the car. 

“You have the water?” he asked, as he buckled himself in.

“Yes, and all the gasoline is in the back, before you ask.” Patrice said, patting his thigh.

He never imagined he would feel any kind of heartache over leaving the cabin, especially since he had so recently resigned himself to die there. Maybe it was the fear of the unknown, leaving a home of sorts. He looked over at Brad as the cabin disappeared from the rearview mirror and saw a tear roll down his cheek.

“We’re going home.”

-

The drive home was largely uneventful, and the thrill of driving after going months without made Patrice feel nearly giddy. It didn’t give him much hope that the interstate was nearly empty, save for cars on the sides of the roads and in the medians that look like they’d been there since the spring. It was eerie and unsettling, and he tried to turn the radio on to give him some kind of distraction. There was nothing but static.

-

They’d left early enough in the morning that they arrived in the outskirts of Boston just before sundown. Patrice suddenly realized he didn’t have a clear destination in mind. Brad didn’t stop him when he started driving towards the fire station.

Before they could get any further, all roads leading into the city were blocked off with concrete barriers. 

“Looks like this is the end of the road.” Brad announced, and unbuckled his seatbelt. Patrice took a moment to be proud of him- the needle on the gas meter was kissing the letter E as he put the car in park. His calculations were nearly perfect. “We’re only a mile or so from the station.” 

Brad put his hand on the car door handle, and then turned back towards Patrice with eyebrows drawn tight. He opened his mouth to say something, but decided instead to reach up and cup Patrice’s face with a rough hand. Patrice let his face be drawn closer to Brad’s, expecting a kiss, but instead Brad just put his cheek against his. They breathed the same air for a few long moments. This was it, either things were going to be better, or they weren’t. There wasn’t going to be much inbetween.

-

They walked in silence, Brad with his rifle slung over his shoulder, and Patrice with his backpack only a few feet behind. The city was silent and dark.

“Are you su-” Patrice began, and then stopped. 

The fire station was just ahead, and they hadn’t heard a soul in a mile. The streets were wide and empty- it was unsettling, like being on an abandoned movie set. He asked Brad if he was scared, and for once he didn’t lie.

-

Brad knocked loudly on the front door of the station. The windows were dark, and both trucks were missing from the garage.

Nothing.

“Brad, we could probably make it to my place before it gets too much later if we start now, see if there’s anything left-”

Brad didn’t even turn around.

He knocked again, loud, and screamed, “It’s Marchy! Open up!”

There wasn’t a sound. Patrice realized he was holding his breath. 

And then, miracle of miracles: a voice.

Charlie threw open the door, face alight with surprise. “Son of a bitch,” he gasped. “You’re late for supper.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end (mostly)
> 
> I have an epilogue that'll tie up a lot of loose ends (hopefully) that I'll be posting here in the next couple days.
> 
> I wrote something (a whole something!) with an ending and everything, and didn't hate it! truly the greatest accomplishment of my life thus far.


	9. the epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tying up a few loose ends.

Charlie had been living there at the station, with Jake and some others that Brad and Patrice didn’t know. There was Jakub, a kid who immediately loved Brad with his whole heart- they never stopped joking together. There was an older woman, Ms. Myers, who had taken Brad’s old bunk. She was crotchety and her smiles were few and far between, but she could make a meal out of anything. It was clear that she felt for all of them as if she was their own mother. Then, finally, a curly headed little girl, Amaya, who had remembered from a school presentation that firefighters were there to help. When she woke up and her parents didn’t, she walked to the fire station. The four, now six, of them had been taking care of her ever since. 

North America was still a wreck, and word traveled so slowly that any news from other regions was practically obsolete by the time it reached them. Boston and other cities had been blocked off to try to prevent the spread of disease, but by the time they were it was too late- the few people that had the means or the health to leave town had already done so, and a majority had died from the fever or from complications related to the plague already. But, as Charlie informed them as they sat down for their late meal, various European nations had been airdropping supplies since early July, and they’d been doing just fine from that. Word was that things were starting to rebuild slowly, especially further down towards New York, and Jake had seen other survivors out in the suburbs living similarly to them, with their newly made families. Most of the trouble had settled down, and now it was a waiting game to see what would happen next. 

Brad was never quite the same. He still had memory spells, still had bad days. But once, when he recruited Charlie to make the day long journey to his old house and back, he returned with his photo album and a ring for Patrice’s finger. 

He was right in his letter. There soon came a time where their months in the woods were like a very distant memory, or a fever dream. But any time Patrice would bring it up, Brad would kiss him and ask him again to count it as a happy memory. And so he did. 

Jake never stopped looking for Pasta, and always had a photo on him to ask people he’d meet if they had seen him.

There was so much loss, and so much unknown, but there was always hope. They had made a new family together, a family that was tied with stronger bonds than any family they’d had before.

It was a year and four months after their return. Charlie, Jakub, and Jake were in the garage kicking around a soccer ball that had gone flat months ago. Brad was in the living room half reading a book, and half watching Patrice who was going along with Amaya’s game of pretending to be cats. Ms. Myers was taking a nap. It was this very afternoon, when Amaya was so young that she’d almost forgotten what it was like, that the power came back on. 

If you would’ve asked Brad when he was nine years old if he would theoretically survive the apocalypse, he would’ve answered with an enthusiastic yes. There would’ve been follow up questions too, like would it be a zombie apocalypse? Would he be able to be with his brother? Could he have his dad’s rifle?

If you would’ve asked Brad when he was nineteen if he would one day be a husband and father, he would have answered your question with a tight voice and say maybe in a different life.

If you would’ve asked Brad what his life would turn out like, never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined anything like this. It was difficult. It was heartbreaking. It was joyful. It was free. 

He sometimes didn’t know how he did it, how it all came to be. And then he’d remember that was what family was for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you thank you thank you
> 
> weirdly emotional about finishing off this fic. it's dear to my heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Please leave kudos or a comment if you enjoyed! Eternal thanks to my very dear friend and beta, @blindbatalex. 🦑
> 
>  
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr [@fridgefishwrites](https://fridgefishwrites.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Penicillin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19042591) by [Aaron_The_8th_Demon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon)
  * [Box Lunch (And Other Bad Food In The Apocalypse)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194742) by [Aaron_The_8th_Demon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon)




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